History
1637
General
Population: 544 Million*
- Entertainment: Writers include Calderon (religious drama), Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin (comedy), Brian Duppa (tribute to Ben Johnson),
Martin Le Roy (romance), John Milton (elegy), James Shirley (comedy), Thomas Hobbes (Aristotlean rhetoric)
Pierre Corneille's play "Le Cid" first performed
Art includes Frans Hals "Hille Bobbe", Rembrandt "Raphael Leaving Tobias", Ribera "Pieta", Van Dyck "Children of Charles I"
- Philosophy: Rene Descartes publishes "Geometrie" proposing analytical geometry and declares Cogito ergo sum
- Deaths: Artist Hon-ami Koetsu, Physicist Daniel Sennert, Dramatist Ben Johnson, Poet John Donne, Theologian Nicholas Ferrar, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II,
Africa
- General: Dutch capture Africa's Elmina from Portugal
Dutch expel Portuguese from Gold Coast (Ghana)
- Senegal: French traders settle St. Louis at mouth of Senegal River
Asia
- China: English traders established in Canton
- Japan: Extermination of Christianity – prohibition of foreign books and contact with Europe
Europe
- England: William Prynne the Puritan parliamentarian condemned for seditious writing and is pilloried and mutilated
British Licensing Act requires all plays submit for censorship before performance
- German States: Bogislav XIV the last Duke of Pomerania dies - end of kingdom of Pomerania
- Holland: Dutch under Frederick Henry of Orange recapture Breda
Commercial collapse of Dutch tulip trade - tulip bubble bursts
- Holy Roman Empire: Death of Ferdinand II – son Ferdinand III rules as Emperor
Teatro San Cassiano the first public opera house opens in Venice
- Russia: Russian traders reach Pacific coast of Siberia – first crossing
- Scotland: Prayer Book forced upon Scotland by England – riot in Edinburgh Cathedral
General
- English emigration to America restricted by royal proclamation
East
- Connecticut: Pequot War - Destruction of Pequod Fort - Massacre of 6-700 Pequot Indians
- Massachusetts: Anne Hutchinson tried before court